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November 30, 1998

In a "A Helluva Town," architecture critic Paul Goldberger reviewed Gotham: A History of New York to 1898, by historians Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace. He ended his review by quoting their description of New York City: (p.125)

"A city of capital,
not a capital city."

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November 30, 1998

In a "The Talk of the Town" piece titled "Do Good Fences Make Good Neighbors?" former Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich discusses the problem of a world of Haves and Have-nots. He talks about the proliferation of "gated communities" in the United States. He describes how Congress has appropriated funds for lengthening and fortifying the American border with Mexico, the "national wall" that separates us from our Third World neighbors to the South. In the article, he makes the astonishing statement that Bill Gates "has a net worth roughly equalling the combined net worth of the least wealthy forty percent of American households." Reflecting on the increasing disparity of wealth, he writes: (p. 31)

"The consequence is that at both perimeters—
the town wall and the national wall—
outsiders are more desperate to get in
and insiders are more desperate to keep them out."

"It may be compared to a cage,
the birds without try desperately to get in,
and those within try desperately to get out."

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November 30, 1998

In "Swan Songs," Alex Ross accepts official accounts that Tchaikovsky died of cholera, and debunks the lurid rumor that he poisoned himself in some some sort of bizarre "court of honor" deal struck with former law school classmates who were scandalized by his homosexuality. Later, in commenting on the famous "Pathétique" symphony, Ross asserts that the music affects the audience and the performers in proportion to the "force of the feeling" that the audience and the performers bring to the music. He writes:

"In the case of the 'Pathétique,'
art and life join in a vicious circle:
the music has changed the way
that the life has been perceived,"
and the life has changed
the way the music is heard."

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November 23, 1998

In "The Town That Ate Itself," Joe Klein places much of the responsibility for the incivility and ugly partisanship in Washington politics at the feet of Newt Gingrich. In a nice example of chiastic alteration, Klein writes:

"Gingrich was obsessed with books about military tactics
and had become something of a reverse Clausewitz:
he considered politics
the extension of war by other means."

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November 16, 1998

In an "Annals of Law" article titled "Low Crimes and Misdemeanors," Jeffrey Rosen describes how Ken Starr and many other federal and state prosecutors have continued an unsettling trend of coercing witnesses by threatening to prosecute them for technical violations of laws that are rarely enforced. Even some traditional conservatives, he writes, become concerned when indictments are used as instruments of coercion, citing the principle: (p.43)

"If a conservative is a liberal
who has been mugged,
a liberal is a conservative
who has been indicted."

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November 16, 1998

In "Master of Her Domain," Nancy Franklin writes of comedian Sandra Bernhard: (p.112)

"It has always been hard to tell where her
sharp-tongued commentary on celebrity narcissism ends
and her sharp-tongued narcissistic celebrity begins."

"It was never clear whether
he said what he meant
or meant what he said,
and the same applies to Bernhard."

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October 26 - November 2, 1998

In a "Political Scene" article, Louis Menand titles his piece "After Elvis," in a reference to a remark Al Gore made when he accepted the Democratic Vice Presidential nomination—that he finally got the job of his dreams, to be the warmup act for Elvis. In the article, which is primarily about Gore and his views, Menand spends a little time talking about President Clinton. Arguing that Clinton is not so much a liar as a bullshit artist and a pleaser, he writes: (p. 166)

"He cannot bear to be the bringer of bad news—
which is why it is fully believable
that he did not tell his wife
the truth about Monica Lewinsky
(or, for that matter, tell Monica Lewinsky
the truth about his wife)."

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September 14, 1998

In an "Annals of Law" piece titled "Terms of Impeachment," Jeffrey Toobin writes about how the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 tried to clarify what the Framers of the Constitution meant by the vague term, "High Crimes and Misdemeanors." He tells how John Doar, the special counsel leading the Watergate inquiry, recruited one of his law school classmates, James A. Woods, Jr., to lead a team of lawyers to research past presidential peccadilloes and, hopefully, provide guidance as to what offenses were impeachable and which were not. Woods formed a team of ten lawyers that included William Weld, who later became governor of Massachusetts, and, ironically, a 26-year-old lawyer named Hillary Rodham. According to Toobin:

"The Woods team
defined impeachment broadly, asserting
that not all crimes were impeachable and
that not all impeachable offenses were crimes."

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September 14, 1998

In "Casinos Royale," Paul Golberger describes how mammoth new hotels with classical and European themes are dramatically changing the Las Vegas experience. Twenty-five years ago, bright neon lights and huge, gaudy signs were all that was necessary to draw people to Las Vegas. Times have changed, though, and Goldberger writes that "The new measure of success is size." He chiastically contrasts the past and the present: (p. 73)

"In 1972 … the signs were more important
than any of the buildings …
Now the buildings are more important
than any of the signs."

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August 24 & 31, 1998

In "The Uses of Misery," James Atlas writes that a large part of Saul Bellow's genius lay in "his ability to capitalize on his experience, to find in circumstances that would defeat a less hearty or resourceful soul the materials of his art." He notes that each one of Saul Bellow's novels was written in response to a dire event-the death of a friend, a psychological crisis, a divorce. For example, Bellow's most famous novel, Herzog, was written after he had discovered that his wife Sondra had been having an affair with his best friend, Jack Ludwig. Atlas notes: (p.98)

"Bellow's life trajectory is cyclical;
Out of misery, triumph;
Out of triumph, misery—
an exhausting but exalted dialectic."

"Life resembles a novel more often
than novels resemble life."

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January 12, 1998

In a "Personal History" essay titled "Anatomy of Melancholy," Andrew Solomon details the unexpected and debilitating depression that gripped his life for several years. One line from the piece reads: (p. 48)

"Syndrome and symptom cause each other:
loneliness is depressing,
but depression also causes loneliness."

"Does one sleep oddly
just because of depression or
does one sink into depression
in part because of sleeping oddly?"